Minnesota
FAQ: Everything you need to know about Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was fatally shot Wednesday morning in Midtown Manhattan as a company shareholder meeting was getting underway. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about Thompson and UnitedHealthcare.
Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group (UNH) is a diversified traded health care company with more than 400,000 employees. It owns UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer. UNH most recently ranked in the top five on the Fortune 500 list of American businesses, just behind Apple, and publicly trades on the New York Stock Exchange. The company is Minnesota’s 10th-largest employer, with approximately 19,000 workers in the state.
A division of UNH, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) is the largest provider of health insurance products in the United States. It provides private health insurance for more than 52 million people, including 29 million with private individual or workplace health plans, and more than 20 million people with government-subsidized Medicare and Medicaid plans.
Thompson was appointed chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare in April 2021 after initially joining UNH in 2004 and serving in a variety of corporate leadership roles. He ran UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare business for several years. The University of Iowa graduate had previously worked as a CPA with PricewaterhouseCoopers, according to his company biography. He lived in Maple Grove. Thompson was fatally shot Dec. 4 outside a hotel in New York City before a scheduled annual conference of investors.
Optum is another well-known division of UNH, providing direct health care and pharmacy services along with data analytics of health care trends. Roughly 90,000 physicians are employed by or affiliated with Optum, the largest such tally in the United States. Roughly 40,000 advanced practice caregivers also are employed by Optum or affiliated with the division.
The company’s insurance division has faced scrutiny in the press and from elected officials for the way it reviews and denies requests or claims for medical care. UnitedHealthcare has been investigated for its use of prior authorization to determine whether services are medically necessary for senior citizens covered by Medicare Advantage plans. The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations announced in October that UnitedHealthcare, alongside the two other largest Medicare Advantage insurers, Humana and CVS, boosted profits by denying seniors stays in post-acute care facilities while they recovered from injuries and illnesses. UnitedHealthcare’s prior authorization denial rate for post-acute care ballooned from 10.9% in 2020 to 22.7% in 2022, according to the subcommittee’s report. The denials, the subcommittee wrote in its report, “can force seniors to make difficult choices about their health and finances in the vulnerable days after exiting a hospital.”
A cyberattack earlier this year on another UNH subsidiary, Change Healthcare, affected 100 million patients, making it one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. Optum acquired Change for $13 billion in 2022. The division processed about 15 billion health care transactions per year before the attack. Some health care providers reported months-long delays in payments of claims in the aftermath of the cyberattack.
Demonstrations outside UNH headquarters in Minnetonka have become larger and generated more attention. Eleven people reportedly were arrested on July 15 when the People’s Action Institute staged a protest regarding the company’s refusals to authorize or pay for care. A former Republican state representative, Jenn Coffey, led the protest after exhausting financial resources to pay for cancer care and fighting with UnitedHealthcare over its denials and coverage limitations.
With family by his side, Dennis “Bud” Peterson went to be with the Lord on the morning of June 1, 2026.
He was born at Drake, North Dakota on April 2, 1932 in the home of his parents Nick and Helen Peterson. The family moved to Duluth at the beginning of World War II.
After graduation from Duluth Central High School Bud served in the US Army in Korea during the Korean War, and received an Honorable Discharge with the rank of Sergeant. He used his GI Bill benefits to attend UMD receiving an Associate Degree, and also earned his Commercial Instrument Pilot rating.
Bud was a longtime employee of St. Louis County retiring as Supervisor of Roads and Bridges. In retirement he served as Boiler Engineer and a do it all repairman for Duluth Gospel Tabernacle. He generously devoted his time and talents as a consummate do it yourself repairman to all of his family.
Dennis is preceded in death by his parents, Nick & Helen Peterson; brother, Robert Peterson; sister, June (Don) Kruger; and infant brother and sister, James and Delores Peterson.
He is survived by his sister, Carol (Eli) Miletich; and numerous nieces and nephews all of whom he loved dearly.
At Bud’s request, his family will be holding a private funeral service. Arrangements by Dougherty Funeral Home 218-727-3555.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services is reexamining over 5,000 Medicaid service providers across the state in an effort to combat fraud.
The federal government said it would pull $2 billion in annual Medicaid funding from Minnesota in January if the state didn’t make changes.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services set out to revalidate thousands of providers in programs deemed high risk for fraud by asking providers to submit verification paperwork and making unannounced site visits. The deadline passed on Sunday.
The latest data, published on May 27, shows 1,009 providers approved, 1,151 disenrolled and over 3,000 providers with pending applications.
Paige Berland and Camille Heyman run Minnesota Behavioral Specialists, providing autism care to children through two locations in the metro area. The women say that after submitting their paperwork, they received letters from DHS with determinations for both locations: the Bloomington center was terminated and the Eagan office was approved.
“It doesn’t make sense, everything is the same minus the location,” Berland said. “So why was one approved and one wasn’t approved?”
The termination letter said the Bloomington center was denied because they failed to disclose a managing employee during a site visit. Berland disputes that and said she already submitted an appeal.
“We were told to keep running, keep continuing as we are while we go through this process,” she said. “It just means that we don’t have the money coming in.”
Josh Berg with Accessible Space says they’re also in limbo. Berg said they offer integrated community supports, which means caretakers provide in-unit assistance for people with spinal cord injuries and disabilities.
“Most of the folks that we support are wheelchair-bound,” Berg said. “Helping with meals, helping with medications, helping them just live their lives.”
Berg said that of the seven locations where people are housed, the Department of Human Services terminated five and approved two. He believes the timeline to conduct this revalidation process was too aggressive. He said Accessible Space has also submitted an appeal.
“We’re not able to bill for services, we’re not able to start new services for anybody or change any of the supports that they receive,” he said.
Both Berg and Berland say they agree fraud needs to be dealt with, but they hope Minnesotans who truly need services aren’t left without the services they need.
“Not just the clients rely on services, but the families do too, so we can’t stop services; that’s not an option on our plate,” Berland said. “We want to continue to provide these services; they are medically necessary.”
The Minnesota Department of Human Services said a disenrollment letter could be sent for a few reasons, including failure to submit revalidation application after two notification attempts, failure to provide all requested documents within the required timeframe and failure to meet the criteria required during an on-site visit.
A spokesperson for the Department of Human Services said it’s currently in the process of compiling data from the thousands of applications, but didn’t say when the department would share those final numbers.
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